


What Rough Beast

by asuralucier



Series: The Second Coming [2]
Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Annoying Americans Abroad, At this point I can't tell if this is crack, Emotional Constipation, Grief and Healing, M/M, Night Terrors, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Santino and I just want John to be less depressed, Sequel, Strip blackjack, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Unsavory Opinions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 12:02:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,712
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20907350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asuralucier/pseuds/asuralucier
Summary: ”Just admit that you’d like him to fuck your brains out.”“What’s the good admitting something like that to you?” Santino presses his nose against the smooth fur on the top of Daisy’s head.“I’d hold you accountable,” his sister opines, still unkindly. “And I’d maybe tell the others that you’re still constipated and that they should steer clear of the Babadook on pain of death.”“The what?” Santino narrows his eyes. “Also what others?”In which John tries to get a suntan, Santino becomes a bit attached to Daisy, Cassian gives John a nickname, and everybody puts their best foot forward.





	What Rough Beast

**Author's Note:**

> Alternative summary: wherein unresolved sexual tension slouches slowly towards the Amalfi Coast to be born...and uh, it's a bit hard going. 
> 
> Hello and welcome to the sequel to [The Mark of the Beast](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18928891) which was really supposed to be about 3.5k worth of porn and silliness but, well. It is now three chapters with John and Santino not being able to deal with feelings and everyone else just going ffs. If this is your jam, happy reading!

John has a routine. Santino knows this, and he has come to expect the man as a part of his own morning. 

So has Gianna, it seems. Her soft footfalls are catlike and quiet, but she’s long trained Santino to give into his paranoia in a very specific way. She too, watches John’s tall figure move, dragging his long languid shadow with him in the sand. Dog is with him, bounding enthusiastically along besides John, alternating between darting straight towards the coming tide of the sea, and then loping back in a zig-zag around John’s ankles.

“Admit it.” 

Santino doesn’t move his gaze away from John or Dog. Even at a distance, they are more interesting than the displeased, exasperated expression Gianna must be wearing up close. She’s worn that sort of thing so long, that Santino is surprised it hasn’t stuck permanently to her damn face. 

“Admit what?” 

“Oh, for God’s sake,” says Gianna, not at all like a good Catholic. “Just admit that you’d like him to fuck your brains out.” 

Santino thinks about denying it, and nearly does. But it’s no good. It’s only a stupid man who refuses to learn from his mistakes, and Santino likes to think that he’s only inevitably a lot of things. But stupid, he doesn’t have to be that. Santino doesn’t have to keep running into walls so long as he learns from his mistakes. 

But maybe telling his sister too much is probably the one mistake Santino will never completely stop making. It’s not as if he’s short on practice. But then, it’s the fact that Gianna has always screwed him over less than the rest of their siblings that spurs Santino to tell the truth.

At least, a fraction of it.

“What’s the good admitting something like that to you?” Santino presses his nose against the smooth fur on the top of Daisy’s head. 

“I’d hold you accountable,” his sister opines, still unkindly. “And I’d maybe tell the others that you’re still constipated and that they should steer clear of the Babadook on pain of death.” 

“The what?” Santino narrows his eyes. “Also what others?” 

“The Babadook,” Gianna says, splaying her perfectly painted fingernails onto the balcony railing. Today, they’re blue. “Apparently it’s a movie. Cassian’s become a bit obsessed.” 

Santino goes and finds John on the beach. 

“Do you even like it here?”

John stares straight ahead towards the sea. “It’s warm here.” 

“That’s not what I asked.” 

John whistles for Dog, and Santino watches as the black thing drew itself away from the ocean’s edge, a wet messy thing with muddy paws and he’s reminded that he hates dogs. 

“But not you,” Santino says, wary of Daisy’s baleful stare. He thinks sometimes, that she must be able to read minds.

“I’m sorry?” 

“I was talking to the,” Santino says, and the stops. He clears his throat, “Never mind. But do you?” 

“Sit,” John says to Dog, and Dog does, planting himself down by John’s feet. “Good boy.” 

Santino waits. He’s come to realize that he’s got to give John a wide berth, and that the man will come to him when he is ready. Now is not like before, when Santino had been on a bit of a clock. Now is fine; it’s an endless wait. The Amalfi Coast has a way of unspooling time, slowing down normally speedy seconds, until time is languid as the sea lapping at the sand on its edge. 

“Does it not bother you?”

Come to think of it, John looks ill at ease in the sun, as if its warmth has become instead, a slow seeping poison under his skin. Santino wonders if the man might start to suffer sunburn if he stays out here any longer. 

“Does what bother me?” 

“What we did,” John says. “What we’re still doing.” 

From where Santino sits, it’s all business as usual. The nice view is a plus. Sometimes, some associate or goon or whatever would appear attempting to pay their respects to Vincenzo D’Antonio, who is almost always “still resting.” Usually the refusal of guests fell to Gianna, who relished the task like an animal scavenger picking off even the last of flesh off of rotting bone. 

The few times the task had fallen to Santino, he hadn’t relished it (as much). John always skulked nearby, but so far hadn’t had to intervene. 

“And what are we doing?” 

John worries his lower lip, squinting straight straight into the sun. “Are you really going to let your father die?” 

The question seems to have incurred some invisible cost, traversing first from John’s brain, to his diaphragm, up his throat, dancing at the tip of his tongue, before being dragged out to join the air. 

Other than John taking a shift from Cassian for a few hours during the afternoon, camped outside of Vincenzo’s bedroom with either a well-worn paperback he’s probably read a thousand times, or a deck of cards, that John would occasionally flick through with the tip of his thumb -- John Wick is a free man. Free to wander about town and do that thing that Americans do, which is try to find other Americans abroad. 

Santino despairs. 

“Papa has a new kidney. It’s going to take a while for us to kill him, which...I didn’t say that. But you know how these things are. Sometimes medication goes a bit funny, so the organ will really have to earn its keep.” Santino stares at John up and down. “Doesn’t the irony just _crack you up_, John, hm?” Crack you up. The turn of phrase, with its American crassness, sat distinctly at odds in the crossroads of what Santino thought language should be able to do. 

Words don’t crack people up; guns do. Barring that, there’s always a well-placed punch to somebody’s jaw, or even a rocket launcher for when things get properly desperate. 

“What I did was different. I was saving people.” 

Along with the summer heat, waking up inside of John is also a simmering thing, a dark inhuman thing that Santino has only seen once, when he’d whaled so many punches on a guy that Santino had to stick a gun to his back to make him stop. 

John likes to pretend that thing isn’t in him anymore, but once that sort of thing wakes up, it never goes back to sleep. Santino knows that better than anyone. 

“Like who?” Santino counters, “You don’t count.” 

“Like Mrs. Mooney.” 

John’s imagination (at least, the kind bit of Santino allows himself to think that) is funny. John likes to think that he’s funny. Santino agrees with this assessment about fifteen percent of the time, and not in a good way. “You’re kidding me right? What you’ve done is cosigned that woman to a life of servitude.” 

John stands firm. “I gave her a chance.” 

“Bullshit, you just gave her prison new dimensions.” 

John turns away from him and starts walking towards the villa. Dog follows and Daisy squirms her way out of Santino’s grasp to hurry and keep up. 

“We’re losing him,” Santino announces to his sister, who was changing for a date in town. 

“That suggests we had him, at some point.” Gianna points out. Then she gestures. “Zip.” 

Gianna’s wardrobe is a veritable pastiche was expensive color. Today, she wears turquoise; the lightness matches the shine in her hair and also her fingernails. Santino does, and then retreats once more to stand near the door. “Help me.” 

“Oh?” 

“Well, first you could tell your boyfriend to leave him the fuck alone.” 

“Marcus is not my boyfriend. Neither is Cassian. I don’t know which one you mean. Maybe John just misses America.” Gianna has a special talent of zeroing in on Santino even through a glass and without moving her head. “ You have to admit, all of this, it was quite sudden. He’s likely still in shock.” 

“Fuck all there is to miss,” Santino mutters.

“Well, if that’s all you know.” Gianna gives herself one last look in the mirror. Satisfied, she turns away. “Does he remind you of her?” 

Santino shrugs. It’s a delicate balance between yes and no these days. Gianna makes him nervous; he might say the wrong thing, and he knows he can’t afford to. 

“Anyway, it’s his shift soon, isn’t it?” Gianna says. 

“See you in a couple of hours, Babadook,” Cassian says as he stands to vacate his chair, and John gives him a soured look. 

“Stop that.” 

“The name suits you.” Cassian claps him amiably on the shoulder. “If and when it doesn’t I’ll pick something else --” Spotting Santino coming down the hallway, Cassian quickly clears his throat and picks up his pace. 

“Santino.” 

Santino nods back without speaking. 

There is a chair perennially stationed outside of his father’s bedroom. This time in the afternoon, Vincenzo is likely asleep even if his pills haven’t done him in. 

“She liked it here,” Santino says. “Helen did. She ran three miles along the coast when we used to come here. Never missed a day. Not even when it rained.” 

John has settled into the chair. There’s a bulge in his left trousers’ pocket. To Santino’s disappointment, it’s only a deck of cards. John takes the cards out of its paper box, thumbs their individual worn edges. 

“Helen used to take Dog for runs,” John says. “I get lazy about it, but she was religious. It’s how we first figured out she might be sick; she started tripping all the time.” He is looking in Santino’s general direction, but Santino has never had a gaze rob him so completely of presence. It’s all he can do to stand there and hold on to himself. 

“But then she lied to me about that. Helen knew all along.” 

Santino sighs. “She could have told me. I meant it, what I said back in New York.” 

“You were the family runt. What the hell would you have done?” John says. The words come out in a rush, they’re angry, but they’re empty too; any heat that might have . Speaking of empty, Santino trains his eyes on John’s fingers. Instead of a ring, there’s now only a tan line. If John isn’t careful, even that might disappear by next week. 

“I can do a lot,” Santino returns. They’re having what he considers an old argument by now. He hasn’t known John that long, but this argument’s been a constant. Something they can count on, something familiar to fall back on when things get weird. “I got you out, didn’t I? You really need to get out more, John.” 

That said, things have been getting plenty sideways around here. 

“Really, that’s what you call it? You _got me out_? You got me fucking banned from New York.” 

Once they get started, it’s hard to stop. And familiarity isn’t always great because. Santino has given up on explaining the intricacies that come with pissing off the Manager of the flagship Continental. So it’d seemed easier then, to squirrel John away to the Amalfi Coast before interested parties could get wind of the whereabouts of John Wojewódzki. Every once in a while, Santino still tries it out.

Still doesn’t work. John’s learned to live with it, Santino thinks, in his own way. 

“As far as I’m concerned, I saved your fucking life.” 

“As far as I’m concerned,” John says, the words just this side of mocking. “You ruined my life. I was doing just fine.” 

“Yeah, but you were hardly awake.” 

John looks like he’d like to sock him one. But now he thinks about it. And after thinking about it, something like anger expels from his body in a slow sigh. “Please leave me alone. Don’t you have anything better to do?” 

“Winston still mad at me?”

“Afraid so,” Marcus says. “Same again?” 

“I guess.” John assents, his gaze drifting away from the bar. 

“I have never seen anyone this depressed to be at the beach on the D’Antonios’ dime.” Marcus pulls John his pint, a golden ale with not too much head. “Hell, I wish I had your life.” 

“You do have my life.” John points out, and presses his lips against the rim of the glass. As far as he knows, Marcus isn’t hurting for money and works tending bar while he’s on vacation solely because a.) “Do you know how boring it gets to be camped out on a roof all the time? It’s nice to be up and moving about.” 

“Nobody _asked_ you to be a sniper.” 

“Yeah, but no one told me not to, either. Hang on.” 

John sips slowly at his beer while Marcus wanders away to serve a couple of tourists who have just straggled in. Marcus is about thirty years too old to take to a temp job, but the job isn’t really the point. 

The point is more b.) “You couldn’t pay me enough to deal with the politics going on in that villa. So if it’s that, then you have my sympathy.” 

“It’s not really politics,” John says. “I haven’t had to punch anyone, yet.” 

“Not even the runt? You’ve better self-control than I do.” Marcus laughs. 

“Santino is not,” John starts, and then thinks better of it. “Are you _sure_ Winston’s still mad at me?” 

“He’s perennially furious,” Marcus nods. “You destroyed an alliance about fifteen years in the making. The Tarasovs were important players in New York and Winston has been buttering them up for ages. I don’t have details, but yeah. Now there are no Tarasovs to speak of and more than a few _bratva_ dilly-dallies are running around like their heads are cut off. Interesting times we live in.” 

“Fuck.” 

“So it’s like I say,” Marcus turns away from him and plucks a bag of mixed nuts off the shelf. “Your life is not terrible. Enjoy it. Get a fucking tan, Jesus Christ. Do _something_.” 

“So yeah,” Ethan’s face shook as he moved down the row of shelves. “I’ve moved our horror section over here; Beck’s talking about running some sort of feminist workshop series. We could potentially affiliate it with NYU. Pretty cool, huh?” 

“Pretty cool,” John echoes. “Listen.” 

Ethan pre-empts him before he can ask. “Nobody weird’s come through asking about you. There was a fight on the sidewalk right outside the other day. But the police came by and cleared it up.” 

“Oh,” John says. 

“Enjoying your vacation?” Ethan asks, politely. Something he doesn’t say out loud is that John’s been on a vacation to an undisclosed location for nearly three months now. This sudden decision may or may not have had anything to do with Ethan’s kidnapping. Ethan is hazy on the details, but he knows that John, after collecting Daisy and Dog, had left New York in a hurry. 

But Ethan is just a normal guy. He has a therapist to re-calibrate various anomalies in his life when he isn’t. Things that are not not so normal or the stuff of fiction. At the suggestion of his therapist, Ethan has thrown himself back into reorganising Mooney’s with gusto. John hasn’t the faintest how Gianna’s managed to send instructions to rebuild the place in record time. But she has. 

He’s learned not to ask questions.

_“We keep our word,” Gianna says to John one day not soon afterwards when she’d poured him coffee; it offends her, but they've started to keep decaf around. “I know you don’t think very much of us, John Wick. But we are trying to keep you safe.” _

_“I don’t need protecting.” _

_It’s a tossup whether her look is meant to be scathing or something else, pity. “You keep telling yourself that.”_

“Hey John?” Ethan’s voice floats in his mental periphery. “John, you still with me?” 

John comes to. “Uh, yeah. I’m still on vacation.” He says hurriedly, even if he has no idea if that’s the topic still under discussion. “Sorry. I was just.” 

“You don’t have to say.” Ethan cuts him off. “I don’t want to know. Therapist says it’s. Look, call me if you need anything, okay? I need to go. Got customers. And uh, things. Speak later.” 

Before John can return the sentiment in kind, Ethan has already hung up the call, abandoning John for his normal life.


End file.
